The story began when a paramedic from the Radovo farm called the guard unit, reporting a baby crying in the forest near the village.
“Did you hear it yourself?” asked the duty officer.
“No, but a villager told me,” replied the paramedic.
“Is she trustworthy?”
“Katerina Savina is a normal woman, doesn’t drink, works as a librarian.”
“But couldn’t she see for herself who was crying there?”
“I asked, and she said she was scared. I wanted to check myself, but then I decided it’s better to call you first.”
“Correct decision. There’s nothing to do in the forest alone.”
The operational team quickly responded to the challenge. Katerina and the paramedic were already waiting near the forest.
“We start combing the forest carefully!” Lieutenant Deev told his team.
The agents listened to every rustle, but there was a deathly silence in the forest.
“Come on, baby, don’t be quiet!” whispered the nurse.
Suddenly, a rustle came from the bushes, and the entire operational force rushed towards the baby’s cries. Deev pulled out a baby wrapped in rags from the bushes.
The paramedic immediately examined the child and said, “It’s a girl, not more than two days old.”
“What a wicked person you must be to leave your own child like this,” groaned the librarian. “Now, the state will take care of you, my dear.”
“The mother of the state is bad; the child needs its own parents.”
“No mother is better than such a mother. You need to find her so she can be held accountable by the law,” Savina insisted.
“First, she must be found, then brought to justice,” replied the paramedic.
“We will definitely find her,” promised the police officer.
First, they checked all women in the “disadvantaged” category, then started asking villagers if any visitors had appeared in the village. Time passed, but the baby’s mother could not be found. Unexpectedly, one of Katerina Savina’s neighbors claimed to have seen the rags in which the baby was wrapped in the librarian’s house.
“Why are you slandering me? What other children? I have three of my own! They slandered me out of envy, as my husband and I live well.”
Despite all the protests, the librarian was taken to the city doctor, who determined that she had given birth a few days ago. After that, the woman burst into tears and confessed that she had indeed left the child but called the paramedic because she didn’t want the baby to die.
“Well, why did you create this whole circus? You could have just given birth and refused, without risking the baby’s life.”
“You don’t understand, it’s a village; everyone knows each other. Then my fellow villagers would spit behind my back.”
For Savina, this pregnancy was undesirable, and she found out too late, so she couldn’t get rid of the child. To keep the pregnancy a secret in the village, she even went to doctors in another region.
The Savins didn’t know how to continue living, as the husband and wife had meager incomes. So, they decided to conceal the pregnancy and devised a cunning plan. They decided that if the baby was found far from the village, even next to the highway, they would turn everything against the visitors.
In any case, this time everything ended well. No criminal case was initiated against Katerina Savina, only an administrative case. The couple pleaded with the administration to return their daughter, and they agreed, but under the close supervision of social workers.
Now, little Marina lives with her parents, and her mother is very afraid that when her daughter grows up, one of the neighbors might tell her this story.
